7mm Scale DJH/Tower Models Streamlined Coronation

The observant amongst you will note the irony of this post. Hint see the sales and wants section....

On Easter Sunday afternoon I had a phone call from a gent that puts a lot of work my way asking if I could fit in building a DJH Streamlined Coronation as soon as possible. The Gent that I am building the J6 for is in no rush so I decided to have a bash.

The kit was dult delivered on Sunday evening and by bedtime I had the basic tender chassis together.

Another couple of hours on Monday morning had the tender chassis complete, so far so good.







To a degree I feel that any criticism that I make of this kit is a bit like sour grapes given that I chose the David Andrews kit over the Tower/DJH version when I bought mine.

That said, hiding what I find doesn't help anyone else who may decide to build one of these.

The key issue with the tender chassis is that the cross members that fit between the wheels are a single half etched layer in the middle section, which makes them very vulnerable to bending. This and other areas where key parts are a single half etched layer (more on that later) are particularly noticeable to me when this build comes right on the heels of building the MOK LMS tender which is prototypically similar in many respects.

Although I don't know the name of the loco that the model is to ultimately represent I have been asked to build it as one of the double chimney red ones - Apparently there were some differences on the red ones over the first few blue ones (I had originally planned to build mine as Duchess of Hamilton in Blue when Coronation was masquerading as DOH while DOH went to America masquerading as Coronation, confused yet.....). Luckily the kit also came with a loan of the Wild Swan/NRM Loco Priles book for the Coronation Pacifics.

 

Thanks Gents.http://www.click

 

Hi Keith,

They don't look it - just the opposite in fact.

I could do as you suggest but it would be difficult to do on the tender retrospectively and very visible too. We must be of a similar mind because I have thought about doing that very thing with the front bulkhead. Which is again half etched, but until I check how the coal chute fits, I have left it alone. Otherwise I make myself a lot of work having to reduce the size of other bit's to take up the the excess thickness.

 

Following on from Keith's post above, the tender sides are battleship plate thickness. They come pre bent to shape to follow the bulkheads - what a shame the bends were too low





I used my my cheap cooks torch bought from Lidl just before christmas. I have found it's too hot and uncontrollable for soldering but it's great for annealing.





However, before you get to the tender sides in the instructions, the next section has you making up the coal chute and coal pusher which went together perfectly.

 

Thanks Gents,

I am with you on the price of DJH kit's, price wise they are comparable to Finney/MOK but nowhere near in terms of quality.

That said they have some prototypes not covered by Finney et, al and since David Andrews has cut back his range if you want a Streamlined Duchess they are the only game in town (unless you can find a second hand one of course).

Regarding the coal pusher once I had worked out that the rods were paired on the inside of the cast clevis points the assembly was fiddly rather than difficult. the key parts have spigots which fo through the base allow almost all to be soldered from the rear. Oddly the most difficult bit to get right was folding it up and soldering the bits together that make up the chute itself rather than the coal pusher.

 

Ha, Ha, I like your thinking Paul,

I am very fortunate in that Chris supports my policy of buying it while you can get it and loans me the money - the Streamlined Coronation build is to pay off the debt for the B16 and a Fourtrack Models J25 that I picked up recently.

 

Where had we got to?

Once I had the sides to the right shape and soldered to the bunker rear I set about detailing the front and rear bulkheads. As I mentioned in York Paul's thread I fitted all the whitemetal castings to the rear bulkhead prior to fitting it. Those on the front bulkhead await fitting.

in true perverse DJH fashion, although the front bulk head and many of it's constituent parts are half etched the rear bulkhead is full thickness.

Front Bulkhead


Rear Bulkhead


Streamlined Cover and Ladder for the rear of the Tender.


Dealing with the thickness of the metal has been a real learning curve on this one because my 80 Watt Ersa solder station won't touch it with 145 degree solder at my usual 340 degree setting.

I have had to whack it up to 400 to get the solder to run. This has meant that much of the soldering has been done with the microflame including (and this may want some of you to lay in a darkened room...) the whitemetal bits.

 

I look forward to the builds.